Healed to Serve
If you’re reading through the Gospels this summer, you know that yesterday we began the Gospel of Mark. If you haven’t been it’s a convenient time to jump in. Mark’s Gospel starts with lots of action. Jesus is encountering all kinds of people and situations and things are happening “immediately.”
June 23, 2013
Mark 1:29-31, Healed to Serve
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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The setting for today’s scripture is the village of Capernaum on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee; we visited this very place on our trip to the Holy Land two years ago (3 photos an ancient synagogue, walls of houses, the walls of Simon’s house that a church has been built over). In Mark 1 we hear about the first of what will be several key healings of women in Mark’s Gospel. It follows another healing story. The first takes place in the synagogue, the other in the home of Simon and Andrew. One involves a man, the other a woman. The first case is one of demon possession; the second is an ordinary fever. The point seems to be that Jesus heals all sorts of problems in all sorts of settings for all sorts of people.
“As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.”
When I read this passage it always makes me smile and think of my Roman Catholic friends. Roman Catholics look to Simon later given the name Peter as the Rock on whom Jesus builds his church, yet Simon was clearly married and priests can’t be. I’ve never really understood that, but I’m a Christian in the Baptist tradition so I don’t have to. Another reason this story makes me smile is that a group of at least five grown men enter a house and learn of one older woman, Simon’s mother-in-law, who was sick in bed with a fever. So naturally Jesus takes her hand, lifts her up, the fever leaves, and she begins to serve them. This is one of the most practical of Jesus’ healing stories. He heals Simon’s mother-in-law and she immediately begins to “wait on them” and serve them food like a good middle-eastern mother would. We never learn Simon’s mother-in-law’s name, she is an ordinary woman whose faith is not even mentioned in regard to her healing. Yet, this will be the first of many passages in Mark that makes a woman a model of discipleship. Her response is the one Jesus is looking for in all of us; her response once touched by Christ, is to get up and serve others.
We all know that serving is a significant part of a mother’s job description. The following answers were given by elementary school children about mothers.
Why did God make mothers? To help us out of there when we were getting born.
She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is. Mostly to clean the house.
How did God make mothers? He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
What ingredients are mothers made of? God made mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
What kind of little girl was your mom?
My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
What did mom need to know about dad before she married him? His last name.
Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs & YES to chores?
What does your mom do in her spare time? Mothers don’t do spare time.
To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.
What’s the difference between moms and dads?
Moms have magic; they make you feel better without medicine.
Moms work at work and work at home, and dads just go to work at work.
If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I’d get rid of that.
I’d make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.
Mothers in all cultures and times understand about serving. Many moms embody the words of 1 Peter 4:8-11, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.”
Like Simon’s mother-in-law, all of us are made to serve God. Whatever we’re good at, we can be doing for God, for the church, and for our communities. At BBC there is a long list of the ways all of you are serving. There are probably over 50 different ministries, groups, and events in which to serve God and our neighbors. We were put on earth to make a contribution and there are certainly lots of ways for everyone to make a contribution at BBC. Sunday School teachers prepare lessons each week, give of their time, and embody the love of Jesus for our children, students, and adults. Caring nurses, Cooks Who Care, all those who serve by making sure there are refreshments after worship to encourage people to stick around and visit with one another. People serve stocking the Caring Cupboard and meeting our neighbors in need of food and sharing a caring smile. The Caring Heart to Heart Team does an excellent job in hosting receptions when a loved one has died. We could talk about everyone who serves by visiting members and friends of the church, sharing a caring presence, reading to people, bringing communion, or an encouraging word. The members of the Worship Team and the choir serve through music to bless the Lord and all of us when we gather in God’s name. The Worship Welcomers, various ministries that serve women and men, our AV Team, and office volunteers, the list goes on and on. We have hundreds of people serving God in dozens of ministries.
An old hymn seeking to describe the awesome greatness of God says, “Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.” A lot of folks can fit under God’s canopy and there is room for all of us to find our place of service and belonging. We all have a part to play. Each of the ministries and the people who make them happen are like the spines of the umbrella that hold up the canvas. When even one or two are broken or not functioning the way they should, the whole umbrella loses its shape and becomes less effective.
As Mark’s Gospel will stress repeatedly, Jesus came to serve and give and serving and giving are part of our life as well. Jesus says we are to be servants of God. Jesus makes it clear serving others helps to train us away from arrogance, envy, and resentment. Rick Warren says, “If I have no love for others, no desire to serve others, and I’m only concerned about my needs, I should question whether Christ is really in my life. A saved heart is one that wants to serve” (Purpose Driven Life, 228).
Like Simon’s mother-in-law, we’re all called and shaped to serve Jesus and others, Henri Nouwen wrote, “No Christian is a Christian without being a minister. Whatever form the Christian ministry takes, the basis is always the same: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” We know we’ve reached a level of spiritual maturity when we stop asking, “Who’s going to meet my needs? Who’s going to serve me?” and start asking, “Whose needs can I meet? Who can I serve?” Mature believers are more concerned about serving and reaching out than about our own convenience and comfort. As we grow as disciples our attitude starts to shift from, “I’m looking for a church that meets my needs and blesses me,” to “I’m looking for a place to serve and be a blessing.”
The well-known prayer of Saint Francis expresses this other focused, ministry oriented spiritual maturity. “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury pardon; where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; &
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; &
It is in dying that we are born to Eternal life.”
As St. Francis’ prayer expresses so well, servants give their all and take responsibility to serve their master, rather than sitting back and complaining because no one is doing anything for them.
One person contributing or failing to contribute can make a significant difference. A priest received a letter marked, “Please give to Harry the Usher.” It was handed over to Harry, and this is what it said. “Dear Harry. I’m sorry I don’t know your last name, but then, you don’t know mine. I’m Gert, Gert at the ten o’clock Mass every Sunday. I’m writing to ask you a favor. I don’t know the priests too well, but somehow I feel close to you. I don’t know how you got to know my first name, but every Sunday morning you smile and greet me by name, and we exchange a few words: how bad the weather is, how much you like my hat, and how I am late on a particular Sunday. I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to remember an old woman, for the smiles, for your consideration, for your thoughtfulness.
“Now for the favor: I’m dying, Harry. My husband has been dead for sixteen years, and the kids are scattered. It’s very important to me that when they bring me to church for the last time, you will be there to say, ‘Hello, Gert. Good to see you.’ If you’re there, Harry, I’ll feel assured that your warm hospitality will be duplicated in my new home in heaven. With love & gratitude, Gert.”
When we use our gifts as servants of the Lord and servants of each other, whether gifts of hospitality like our Worship Welcomers, or mercy or teaching or anything else we’re touching lives in ways greater than we know.
Puccini wrote a number of great operas including La Boheme. When he was in his sixties, he contracted cancer, and so he decided to spend his last days writing his final opera, Turnandot, which is one of his most polished pieces. When his friends and disciples would say to him, “You are ailing; take it easy and rest,” he would always respond, “I am going to do as much as I can on my great masterwork and it’s up to you my friends, to finish it if I don’t.” Puccini died before he could complete the opera.
Now his friends had a choice. They could mourn their friend and return to life as usual – or they could build on his melody and finish what he started. They choose the latter. And so, in 1926 at the famous La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Puccini’s opera was played for the first time, conducted by the famed conductor Arturo Toscanini.
When it came to the part in the opera where the master had stopped writing because he died, Toscanini stopped everything, turned around with tears welling up in his eyes, said to the large audience, “This is where the master ends.” And he wept. But then, after a few moments, he lifted up his head, smiled broadly and said, “And this is where his friends began.” Then he finished conducting the opera.
Where our master Jesus ends, as far as his death and resurrection, is where his friends and disciples build on the melody he began, using our spiritual gifts, our passion, our abilities, our personality, and our experiences as a community of servants in his power and in his name to help others along their journeys. We’re shaped to serve God. Whatever we’re good at, we can be doing for God. No matter who we are or where we are, we can be an instrument of God’s peace.
And remember, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received… Serve with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Prayer: Jesus, we pray that you would come to our house and enter and heal the fever of our sins, whatever they may be. Each of us is afflicted by one “fever” or another. So we invite you to come into our home, take our hand, lift us up and heal us so we may serve you and others.
Blessing: “Do all the good that you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” John Wesley